Growing up, I always felt a little different. Even though I was smart and athletic and had a lot of friends, I could never shake the thought that I was inferior. That I didn’t matter. That if I just disappeared, no one would miss me.

It wasn’t until years later I realized I was suffering from depression. I started having suicidal thoughts in my early teens. Nothing that I acted on, but it was always there in the back of my mind. Preying upon my fears.

But perhaps I should back up a little.

My mother shot and killed herself when I was eight years old. I remember that day. My brother and I were playing in the basement of our home. To this day I can’t decide if I heard the shot, or if that’s just my memories playing tricks on me. In any case, my father found the body and rushed us out of the house. My brother and I waited at a neighbor’s home for a couple hours until the emergency vehicles had left. Then our father came and told us the news.

I remember my father crying as he told us. I remember feeling bad about it, but not being able to summon up any authentic sorrow. It wasn’t until many years later that I really cried about her death. As I got older, I questioned whether my depression stemmed from her suicide, or whether it had always been there, deep inside me like an evil seed.

As time went on, I learned to cope with these feelings. But as writer, I am obsessed with finding the reasons behind things, of shedding the rationales to glimpse the heart of a matter. So it’s no wonder that many of my stories include or touch upon personal loss.

In my first published novel, the main character lost his parents when he was young. And that loss remained tied to the core of his personality well into adulthood. In the sequels, the character tracks down what happened all those years ago and tries to make sense of what his life has become. In another series, the main character has lost his wife and young child in a terrible accident. Guilt and loss haunt him throughout the story.

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in Psychology to understand that I was seeking catharsis in these stories. Writing can be a source of healing. Although I’ll never know all the reasons why my mother ended her life, I can explore those feelings in my stories, and I suppose it gives some measure of comfort. But what really helps is the aspect of sharing these experiences, even in fictional form. Depression feeds on isolation and loneliness, making us feel abandoned in the middle of a crowd. Sharing counteracts that isolation. Every time I reveal this pain, its hold on me diminishes.

Also, writing about these flawed characters teaches me that I don’t need to be perfect to have value. Even heroes suffer loss and loneliness. There is strength to be found in the struggle.

I want to thank you for reading this. Exploring these feelings isn’t easy or particularly pleasant, but it’s necessary. We aren’t alone. We aren’t invisible. And people do care about us, even when we have a hard time seeing it. By standing together, we push back the darkness and hold onto the light.

— Jon

About the campaign:

#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment.

Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Hope for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK), SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors and blog posts, or reach a media contact, go to http://www.HoldOnToTheLight.com and join us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WeHoldOnToTheLight

When I was launching my Patreon page last week, it occurred to me that it’s been a long time since I explained why I do this writing thing. Why do I spend thousand of hours, year after year, pecking away at this keyboard, inventing stories and characters and places out of my imagination? And why do I have the gall to let the results be published for all the world to see?

Maybe I’m ill.

I’m only half kidding. I’ve long said that all writers — all those compelled to write — must be schizophrenic. It’s a strange thing to invent with words, to wrap ideas and philosophies inside a narrative, to create conversations between imaginary characters as if they were real people. Yet I love it.

For my money, there are few pleasures in this world that compare with the bliss of getting lost in a good book. And the idea that I could contribute to the realm of literature, that I could give that experience to other people, blows my mind. It’s with equal parts hubris and humility that I set fingers to keys and try to create something that speaks to you. Because we all have shared experiences, shared emotions, shared dreams. Fiction is about exploring those samenessess to dive down into the heart of what it means to be human. That’s my playground.

So, for me, writing is not a hobby, or even a profession. It’s a calling. Even back when the only people reading my stories were myself and my wife, it was a compulsion. A drive to keep inventing, to keep improving, to become a better person with every word written.

And I’ll keep doing it for as long as I live. I may never be a “popular” author. I may never win any awards or be able to live off my sales. But I am and forever will be a writer.

]]>http://jonsprunk.com/2016/08/why-i-write.html/feed3Jon is on Patreonhttp://jonsprunk.com/2016/08/jon-is-on-patreon.html
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:57:45 +0000http://jonsprunk.com/?p=732No, it’s not a designer drug. Patreon is a web service that allows people to invest in me directly. While I LOVE when people get my books, my sales aren’t enough to support a family. So I have to work a night job, and that takes up a lot of hours — time and energy I’d rather spend writing.

So, please read the testimony on my Patreon page (“Why Jon is on Patreon.”) That’s all I ask. Thank you much.

]]>Return to Azerothhttp://jonsprunk.com/2016/08/return-to-azeroth.html
http://jonsprunk.com/2016/08/return-to-azeroth.html#commentsWed, 03 Aug 2016 16:34:04 +0000http://jonsprunk.com/?p=727So, those of you who follow my facebook page might know that Jen and I have returned to World of Warcraft (WoW) for the 50th time after a few months’ hiatus.

I vividly remember the first time I heard about this game from a friend. I poo-poo’d it at the time, having played a few fantasy MMOs in the dawn of (digital) time, but Jen was intrigued. So she bought a copy, installed it on her computer, and entered a world unlike anything we had ever seen before. She was hooked in the first minute. Watching over her shoulder while she played, it took me two minutes. So I grabbed my keys and ran out to the local box stores to get a copy. (It took me 2 days to get it, because the stores were all sold out.)(Yes, this is before digital download copies were available.)(Yes, I am old.)

We lost ourselves in the vivid world of Azeroth, with Jen playing a healer druid and me a bow-wielding hunter. We adventured from one end of the digital world to the other, slaying monsters and taking their loot. Along the way we met great people who were also sharing this experience, and some of them became real-life friends of the highest caliber. Friends we still treasure today, 12 years later.

Over the years, Jen and I would occasionally take a break from the game. Like anything else, a game can get repetitive. When we get bored, we cancel our subscriptions. But, invariably, a new expansion will come out, and we will get sucked back into WoW again. Like we just did a couple weeks ago.

I still have that hunter character, and Jen still has her druid (although we transferred them from the Alliance to the Horde side years ago.) But now I mainly play a priest who heals, and Jen’s been experimenting with the warlock class. Variety is the spice of life, eh? And now we’re focused much more on the player-versus-player combat than adventuring and raiding. But there’s still magic in this experience. We’ve tried tons of other online games, but we always return to WoW. It’s familiar, but it always manages to show us something new.

And there is no doubt in my mind that part of our love affair with this game involves each other. I couldn’t stick with a game for this long on my own. But having my love and best friend there with me is pure gold. It’s quality time we spend together, whether we’re assassinating elves or plunging into dark dungeons. We’re together, and that makes all the difference.

So, when our schedules permits, you can sometimes find us on Llane server, melting faces and having a blast together.

As you might have seen from my social media posts, I’ve made a page on Patreon. It’s a service that allows people to pledge money to their favorite artists (those of us who don’t yet make a living wage through our art). I think of it as an investment into my future. Anyway, please read the page (“Why Jon Sprunk is on Patreon.”)

Jenny and I saw BvS last night. It was a great date night. Alas, the movie wasn’t as wonderful as I wanted it to be. To be upfront, maybe I expected too much. I’m one of the few fans who actually enjoyed Man of Steel. Yes, it had some plot and logic problems, but overall it told a good story.

So I went into BvS thinking it would be more of the same, just bigger and louder. Well, it was big and loud, but most of it fell flat on its face. I’m referring to pretty much the entire first two-thirds of the movie wherein Batman and Superman are racing…. well, kinda shuffling … toward an epic showdown.

*SPOILER ALERTS FROM HERE ON *

It all stems from what is really a silly misunderstanding. Batman is convinced that Superman is somehow to blame for General Zod’s attack on Metropolis and is dead-set on removing the “threat” of Superman from the world, going so far as to grab some kryptonite to forge into weapons with the purpose of killing Supes. Yes, you heard right. Batman in this movie is not only the world’s worst detective with the deductive powers of a tree stump, he’s also ready, willing, and able to kill a superhero just because he could someday be a threat. The line which tells it all is when Batman tells his trusty butler/sidekick Alfred that if there’s even a 1% chance that Superman could go rogue, he must be killed. Wow. When did Bruce Wayne morph into Donald Trump. I kept expecting Wayne to tell people about the “big, beautiful wall” he would build to keep these pesky space-aliens off his yard.

For his part, Superman plays these scenes with cold detachment. He wants to be a hero, but some people don’t like him. Boohoo. President Obama deals with this shit everyday but Superman can’t stand it when the pundits on the evening news dare to question his morality? Talk about anti-heroic.

The weakness of this story is highlighted at the climax of the Batman-v-Superman battle royale when these two “heroes” finally have a ten-second conversation and realize they are on the same side. Duh. Thanks to the creators of this movie, Batman and Superman have been whittled down to the dumbest, most hair-trigger, least-trusting people on the planet. Even Spongebob F—ing Squarepants shows more mental wherewithal.

Look, the basic premise of this film – that Batman and Superman should fight – is shitty at best, but these kind of hero-v-hero battles have been done over and over in comics, and done much better. The movie takes a giant crap on everything these characters ever stood for. Batman, instead of being a super-sleuth, is shown as a rich, muscle-bound terrorist. Superman is depicted with all the remoteness of Dr. Manhattan, but without any of the philosophical underpinnings.

And as for that mega-battle hyped in the title? While well-choreographed in a technical sense, it was just plain stupid from story-logic point of view. Batman, bedecked in cheap Iron Man armor and wielding a kryptonite-tipped spear, flicks on the bat-signal and waits for Supes to show up. Superman does so, because he and Batman are both completely unable to foresee Lex Luthor’s childishly obvious manipulations. Even if I buy the reasons behind it, the battle was idiotic. Superman goes to meet Batman because he wants to talk; Batman just wants blood. But Superman is stupid, so he just walks into Batman’s traps. No using his x-ray vision beforehand to check the scene. No using his heat vision to spot-weld Batman’s armor into a pile of slag from a safe distance. Nope, Supes just walks into trap after trap, refusing to even try to dodge the kryptonite-laced smoke grenades. And of course, Batman refuses to listen to anything Superman tries to say to solve their dispute. Egads, these two idiots deserve each other.

So they beat on each other for a while, giving some audience members the blood they desire. And how does it end? Oh, Superman finally manages to say one word, which leads to a 10-second conversation wherein both “superheroes” realize this was all a big misunderstanding. From that moment on, they are bestest buddies. C’mon. How stupid and trite can we make this movie?

That all being said, things got slightly better after Bats and Supes made up. Batman goes to save Martha Kent and engages in the best fight scene in the movie against Luthor’s mercenaries. Meanwhile Superman goes to confront Luthor, and ends up battling Doomsday.

Sigh. Doomsday? Really? For those of you unfamiliar, in 1992 the Superman comics had an arc of stories called The Death of Superman, where the Big Blue battles an unstoppable science-engineered killing machine named Doomsday. It was done very well, reviving my interest in a character I hadn’t read in a long time. An entire movie could have been devoted to this epic battle. Instead, it’s tacked onto the end of this movie like an afterthought. Yes, the battle itself is shot well and we get to see some cool explosions, but it was like if George Lucas had just tossed Darth Vader into the end of A New Hope without any of the lead-up scenes that made us fear Vader in the first place. Who is this guy with the black armor and James Earl Jones’ voice? Nevermind, he’s just here to fight and die, don’t ask any questions, kid.

There was no story value here. Doomsday is just a placeholder opponent. Just a sad, sad cherry on top of this pathetic sundae.

While we’re at it, why did Superman just allow the crashed Kryptonian scout ship from the last movie to sit in the middle of Metropolis where it could be used by a villain like Luthor in the first place? Oh yeah, stop thinking. Superheroes are dumb as a bag of rocks.

Talking about token characters, this film treats Wonder Woman like day-old bread. For ninety percent of the movie, she’s just a mysterious (and hot) woman in a slinky dress, trying to get some photo back from Luthor by attending parties and exchanging long glances with Bruce Wayne. What the frak? Sorry, if Wonder Woman wants something you took from her, she is a godsdamned goddess. She just walks up to your lab-fortress, busts down the door, and beats you into giving it back. But no…. we need her to just show up at random scenes and look mysterious. Really, stop asking questions.

Honestly, the entire Wonder Woman set-up felt like pandering to her fan base. Finally, you get to see your favorite character in a feature film! Well, sorta. Just ignore that she’s eye-candy for the boys until the very end. I guess we can at least be happy that she speaks with more intelligence and commonsense than either of the title characters, but that’s a very low bar to hurdle.

Princess Diana does show up again at the very end to help Batman and Supes battle Doomsday. And she kicks serious ass. It’s great . . . if you don’t ask why she’s getting involved in the first place, since she states very flatly that she’s done meddling in mortal affairs. But hey, the film needs a boost, so turn off your brain and toss her into the fight. We need more explosions!

I’m on the fence about adding a sword and shield to Wonder Woman’s accoutrements. On one hand, they look awesome, giving her a classic warrior look. On the other, she is as strong and tough as Superman, obviously smarter than Batman, and now she has Captain America’s impenetrable shield and a sword that rivals Thor’s hammer. Why the frak is Luthor worried about Superman? This movie reduces Superman to a low-powered chump. A chump who worries about what people say about him, no less. Just grab some kryptonite that seems to be lying around everywhere and launch a PR campaign against him. He’ll crumble. But Wonder Woman is the real power in this DC universe. Luthor should have been plotting against her the entire time. At least she would have had a compelling reason to be in this movie.

All in all, BvS is fatally flawed on some basic levels if you actually want to care about its characters or story world. Don’t look to Batman to be intelligent (or consistent in his morality). Don’t look to Superman to be the unassailable bastion of justice. And don’t look for Wonder Woman at all until the very end. In this movie, these characters are just pawns moved around to be in the right place for the explosions and fist-fights to happen.

My problem is that I went in expecting to see something comparable to The Avengers. Or even Iron Man 3. Instead, I got an experience which reminded me of Superman IV: The Quest for Your Money.

]]>http://jonsprunk.com/2016/03/batman-v-superman.html/feed2The Man of Steel (movie)http://jonsprunk.com/2016/03/the-man-of-steel-movie.html
Wed, 23 Mar 2016 18:00:25 +0000http://jonsprunk.com/?p=713I re-watched Man of Steel last night. I hadn’t seen it since the theater release, and I was pretty impressed at the time. Well, the re-watch was a mixed bag.

On one hand, I’ve gotten a little tired of the glut of superhero movies. Yes, I still go to see most of them, but my wonder is fading. One of the things I really enjoyed about MoS was that it wasn’t afraid to break some molds and slay some sacred cows.

But it also received a metric shit ton of criticism, mostly centered around two points — that Superman was too shallow and angsty, and that he was a brute because of all the damage done to Metropolis during the climactic battle.

First, I didn’t find Supes all that angst-ridden. From the start he had a strong sense of wanting to help people. Even when overwhelmed by his abilities as a child, his instinct was never to lash out, even when people might have deserved it. Yes, he may have been the strong silent type in the first half of the film, but since when did that become emo? He didn’t brood in his bedroom listening to funeral hymns. He was out in the world trying to find his way.

Second, I have a hard time laying that destruction at the end at Superman’s feet. Zod held all the trump cards in this movie. He picked the battlefield. He choose the time. Yes, Superman could have tried to carry the battle out over an ocean or into space — but remember this is a fledgling Superman who literally just started to master his powers in the scenes before Zod arrived on Earth. He doesn’t have the decades of experience that we’ve seen in the comics and other various incarnations. This entire film is an origin story.

I thought this film had some great moments. Some of the scenes with Pa Kent and young Clark were extremely poignant. And we actually get to see a young boy Clark struggle with these abilities and the morality of their use. Most superhero movies gloss over such things, but MoS wasn’t afraid to ask some tough questions. And near the end when we see young Clark playing with his dog, wearing a red cape and striking the Superman pose, I can’t explain why but that moment really pierced my heart. Maybe because it spoke directly to my own childhood fantasies.

Alas, all was not rosy. Some of the answers that Pa Kent and Clark come to are really stupid. I didn’t buy that teenage Clark would allow his father to die in a tornado rather than reveal his powers. Sorry, that was ANTI-heroic. A very bad misstep in the writing. I highly preferred how the Christopher Reeves movies did it, with Pa Kent just keeling over from a heart attack, and Clark crying not just because his father died, but because what is the use in having these great powers if you can’t bring back the ones you love?

There were plenty of plot holes, but the biggest logic gap for me was the handling of how Kryptonians get their super powers on Earth. It’s explained that it’s the light of the yellow sun (standard Superman explanation, which I can buy) but they also insert that it’s the oxygen-rich atmosphere. This is a problem because when Zod captures Superman and takes him aboard the ship, Superman loses his powers, we’re told because of the Kryptonian air inside. But Superman is still bathing in the cosmic rays of the sun…. so Earth’s atmosphere is MORE responsible than the sunlight for his powers?

Hmmm, okay. Well then, why did Zod’s thugs have super powers when they came down to kick Superman’s butt? They were still breathing Kryptonian air via their breathing apparatus.

And even though it took Superman years to fully adapt to Earth’s atmosphere, Zod does it in a matter of minutes at the last battle?

Barring the air = superpowers snafu, I still mostly enjoyed the movie, for the questions it asked and some of the emotional moments. But I have to admit that some of the writing was just bad. In trying to combine Superman’s origin tale with the coming of Zod into one movie, I think they created some serious story problems that the film did not answer well.

Also, one of my biggest pet peeves about any Superman media (film, comicbook, tv) is the constant adjustment of his power level. Why was the oil derrick so hard for Superman to lift in the beginning of the movie? Why does he flinch when the helicopter chain gun fires on him? But he can resist a gravity beam that is terraforming the Earth?

Someday, I want a movie that isn’t afraid to ask how can he hug regular humans without shattering their ribcages? Or kiss Lois without crushing her jaws? Oh well, I doubt it will ever happen. Supers has been around a long time and no writer has managed to tackle those basic questions.

So here’s some (potentially) good news. After a very hectic and irritating summer, things have finally settled down. I have a new job that at least allows me to sleep like a semi-regular human. It still eats up a lot of time, but now that our son is in school I’ve been able to actually work on the new book every day this week. If that trend continues, maybe I can be productive again.

The bad news is that the book is very far behind schedule. Right now, I’m supposed to submit it to Pyr by the end of next March. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can meet that deadline, but life has been too turbulent for me to make any promises that far down the line. But I can promise I’ll work my ass off trying to reach that goal.

Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm for this series. It means everything to me.